


Stumble and Fall Your Way to Each Other

by writerkenna



Category: The Simpsons
Genre: Adultery, Drabbles, F/M, Lisa Simpson Character study, M/M, Nelson Muntz Character Study, Sex, Slow Burn, Temporarily Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-15
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2020-12-17 04:02:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 9
Words: 21,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21047981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writerkenna/pseuds/writerkenna
Summary: You keep going back to her, like a boomerang. All your life, there she is, Lisa Simpson, pulling you in and pushing you out.





	1. Ten

**Author's Note:**

> Okayyyyy so, this is going to be an ongoing series of brief oneshots following Lisa and Nelson's relationship as they grow up. There will be some major canon-divergance. If you want more please read and review!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okayyyyy so, this is going to be an ongoing series of brief oneshots following Lisa and Nelson's relationship as they grow up. There will be some major canon-divergance. If you want more please read and review!

Lisa’s lips are softened by her Cotton Candy Lip Smackers. She had shown it to you, its blue tube lined with pink, with a glint of pride before smearing it across her mouth. You pick up only after you are pressing your face against her that it had been a hint, her little eight year old way of saying, ‘look, my lips are sweet, kiss me!’ She’s such a dweeb. Really, truly, lame, with her clues and big words and thoughts on stars. She kisses good, though. 

When you royally screw yourself, as per usual for you, the disappointment in Lisa’s face stabs you, gets under your skin in a way that no one else can.

“A kiss doesn’t mean anything if it’s dishonest,” she quips at you. You groan and kick at some pebbles. You wish, briefly, she could just be simple like everyone else, like a kid, and stop worrying about the great matters of truths and lies. But, then again, she’s not really Lisa without the mumbo jumbo about the fate of humanity, so you’ll take the bad with the good.

“Uh, there’s a niceness to it,” you cover. A very, very niceness to it. Tingly and new and a little uncomfortable, because you haven’t figured out if you’re supposed to move your lips or just sit there. But, Lisa smells really nice and you get to be really close to her when you’re kissing. Lisa furrows her brow at you, and you know exactly what she’s thinking. How can a person be as stupid as you are? You want to tell her you don’t know either.

Instead, you admit she couldn’t change you, you accept your failing. Actually, no, you decide with yourself, not a failing. You  _ won’t _ change. You rock. It’s a choice. She agrees with you. You are unchangeable.

“So is this, like, goodbye?” you ask. Lisa smiles, soft and thoughtful. She glances back up at you and your eyes shoot away.

“More like smell ya later.” She’s using your words. That’s pretty cool, actually. You manage a smile. You’d like it if she keeps that, as long as nobody knows that you two were friends, or whatever you were. You don’t get girl stuff like that. 

She turns away from you and starts along the path down the hill. You wish she would just kiss you, one more time, as a goodbye or something. You finally get all the fuss people make about kissing. It’s fricking awesome, all warm and close and fuzzy. Just as you almost break and call out Lisa’s name and start begging for one final kiss, she turns over her shoulder to you.

“You know, you were my first kiss,” she says. That gets you. First kiss. Always gonna be her first kiss. The permanence of that is startling. You grin, red on your nose, and she leaves then with a final smile.

She was your first kiss, too.


	2. Twelve

It’s not like you were trying to go to the concert. It’s not like you care.

It’s just, well, you had detention because of some really stupid reason that Skinner had to bust you for, so you were at the school at six o’clock anyways. You weren’t trying to see her.

So, yeah, it’s like six and you hear music coming from the auditorium, so you decide to just sneak through the doors in the back and lean against the wall to watch. And yeah, maybe she’s up there.

Twenty minutes in, Lisa comes forward with a solo, her saxophone dwarfing her figure as she lugs it over to the chair in the center. She’s not wearing her normal clothes, instead a shimmery, thin-strapped dress, blue shifting into tones of silver, that you’ve never seen before. She must have bought it just for this. It looks okay, you guess, new, fun. 

Then she brings the tip of the saxophone to her mouth, sucks in a gulp of air, and, as she blows it out, hits a deep, resonant note. You stare at the opening to the instrument, pressed to the wall by the sound all the way back where you’re standing. Briefly, you are shocked that so much noise can erupt out of such a small girl, like really, probably about four feet tall, but then, wait, actually you’re not that surprised, cause that is Lisa Simpson up there. She’s always loud. 

She finishes the string of bouncing, jumping, and dipping notes with a one final deep tone, pulling her lips away from the mouthpiece and letting them grow without shame into a proud smirk. She’s completely aware of just how good she is and just how impressive it is. You can’t really blame her for it, as you know it, too, but she doesn’t have to be so smug about it. 

The concert concludes on less impressive solos and you think that maybe you should leave. But, every time your hands go grabbing for the door handle, Lisa shifts in her seat or pulls up her saxophone and the lights hit her dress, splinking off metallic chairs and shining into the center of your eyes. 

After the whole show ends with a long, meandering speech by Skinner on the importance of school funding and reminding of the donation buckets by the snack table and you think you hear Mr. Simpson groan, Lisa steps down off the stage on her tip-toes and moves towards her family. Mrs. Simpson hugs her first, with a big grin and those soft, mom-type eyes, then Mr. Simpson, who is coming off a yawn, and finally, Bart, begrudgingly when his mom pushes him towards Lisa. Lisa is positively glowing from it all. 

You turn to the door, cause now you really should leave or else you’re the weirdo sticking around all these proud little families, like an odd puzzle piece amongst a box of matching pairs. But, as you do, you hear the nasal whine of that snot Millhouse yelling out Lisa’s name.

He’s coming from his own family who came to see him blow what sounded like farts out his trumpet, in a tight sweater vest and khakis. He grabs Lisa too hard and her face goes tight, nose pulling up to wrinkle between her eyes. Well, you should probably break  _ that _ up.

“Hey, Lis,” you say. You give Millhouse a quirk of an eyebrow and an upturned lip, which does its job, because he mumbles a goodbye and darts back to his mother. 

“What are you doing here?” she asks. You shrug as you shove your hands into your pockets, sort of trying to be like that guy James Dean your mom has a poster of, but then you feel dumb and go back to your slouch. 

“Skinner busted me for spray painting his car. Came here after detention. Something to do.”

“Oh, yeah, I saw your lewd drawing. You really shouldn’t do that. I’m sure your artistic skills could be put to better uses.” 

You snort a small ‘ha-haw’. That was one of your finer dick paintings. What better use than that?

“Okay. Whatever.”

“So, um,” she wavers, staring at her feet, “did you like the show?” 

You flush and turn your face away. She was actually astounding and you didn’t know you could like jazz and maybe you wanna come back to the next one if she’d give you the date for it, but that’s not important. 

“It was okay, I guess. Pretty boring, but your part was, uh . . . like, the least boring.”

She beams and her mouth falls open, and oh Christ, you got her started.

“Thanks! The first half was In A Sentimental Mood by Duke Ellington, but then I sort of just riffed at the end, which was a bit crazy, but, like, totally exhilarating, too. It was so fun, don’t you think?”

The fact that she has invented her own music pumps up your awe of her to an eleven. How the hell is she just ten?

“What, really? Man, that’s super cool!” you say. She giggles and shoots you a bright smile. Your chest bubbles with a weird sort of something, maybe heartburn, and you frown, “Or, um, I guess cool to the type of people who like jazz. I don’t. It’s actually really lame.”

“Well, I’m sorry you feel that way. I disagree,” she huffs, “I guess I’ll be going then.” 

Well, great. You screwed it up. Smooth move, you dumbass. Doesn’t matter, anyways, 

“I like your hair,” you mumble. Mrs. Simpson must have done it. It’s an up-do with silver pins tucked into it. 

“What’d you say?” Lisa turns to you, still aggravated. You are sure the comment won’t land.

“Nothing! Bye, kid. I’m gonna blow this place,” you cover.

“Don’t call me kid!” she shouts back across the room, and some people stare your way. You go red and run out to the safety of cool dark. 

The show was lame. Lisa’s lame. Parents who go to those things are lame. Still, you learned one thing for sure:

Lisa Simpson is meant to be a musician. 


	3. Fifteen

It’s a Friday night in September, the third Friday of your sophomore year, and you, Bart, Milhouse and Jimbo are smoking a fuckton of weed. 

Mr. and Mrs. Simpson, or Homer and Marge, as Bart has told you all you are old enough to be calling them, are out trying the weekly date thing to spice up their marriage. Your mother does that, too, if you can count giving herself over to any flavor of the week way too loudly while you’re trying to sleep as a date night. So, anyways, you’ve all decided to change up the scenery from your worse for wear and yellowing living room to the slightly less dismal Simpson basement. 

Bart fills the bowl and hits it first and longest, since it’s his weed, his house, and his bong. He slips it over to Milhouse, who gags around the smoke that billows from his throat and falls over at his waist onto Bart’s crossed legs. God, he’s such a pussy. Bart doesn’t seem to care though, about Millhouse pussy-ness, because he chuckles, eases the bong out of Milhouse’s hands to Jimbo, and slaps a palm to center of his back. 

“You’re such a fucking bitch,” Jimbo snorts at Milhouse. 

“Oh shut up and smoke my weed, Jones,” Bart says as Milhouse rises up with one more cough. Bart checks him with ‘you okay’ under his breath and Milhouse nods, red faced. 

The bong gets to you, finally, and you light up and suck in. Bart has put ice in the bong water, a trick he does for Milhouse to chill the smoke, which makes the coughing jag even more pathetic. The smoke rides down you easily and you’ve actually started to like the taste of pot now. You mean, you’ve been smoking for almost a year and half and it’s become familiar enough to be nice.

You go to start the circle again and give the bong back to Bart, when the basement door slams open. You clamber to push the pot paraphernalia behind your back. Normally, you say screw it about adults’ opinions on you; your mother, teachers, cops, etc, but disappointing Marge would really suck. You’ve got some sort of something about that woman, guilt for overstaying your welcome at her house too much or gratitude for her being mom-like to you as a kid. 

But it’s not Marge, or Homer, at that door at the top of the stairs, but Lisa flushed down her nose with her brows furrowed. 

“Fuck stupid fucking Mr. Gianto!” she hollers. You huff a laugh out your nose which Bart, and then the rest of the group follows with chitters, and her face tightens up, “are you all high?”

“Damn right we are!” Jimbo hoots after which Bart elbows him with a mumbled ‘dude’. Lisa rolls her eyes, which you are inclined to agree with, as Jimbo is literally stupider than any of you, at all times. Bart shoves off from the duck-taped coach and meets Lisa half-way on the stairs.

“Now, Lisa, Lis, hey, let’s talk.”

Bart goes into whispered damage control with Lisa. Her face is getting redder on each word he issues and you are honestly a bit excited to see if she’ll blow up on him. 

“Well,” Lisa says, loud enough for you all to hear, “if you don’t want me to tell mom, let me smoke with you guys!”

That shocks you out of your amusement. Lisa does  _ not  _ smoke, weed or otherwise. She doesn’t hang out in bleach-scented basements in her freetime. She goes to band practices, and Model UN, and mathletes, probably. 

You stand up and she looks at you for the first time that day. When was the last time you two talked? You see her in passing a lot, with Bart and at school now that she’s skipped eighth grade straight to high school, but you don’t talk. Maybe if you talked, you know why in hell she is asking to smoke pot. When she looks at you, it’s a brief scan, before she pushes a blonde curl behind her ear and turns back to Bart.

“What? No!” he yells. Lisa falters, wavering with her thin lips creasing each other.

“W-why? Why can’t I?” she asks and Bart tosses his head back with a grunt of a laugh.

“Uh, I dunno, cause you’re, like, five?” 

Lisa’s mouth falls open at that and devastation passes over her. She slams her mouth shut again, but not before screeching something that is not really words, and speeds up and out of the basement. The door shakes in its frame and Bart groans down to his feet before heading back down.

“Ooh that’s one wacko chick,” Jimbo laughs. He tends to think he’s really funny when he’s high. He’s really not. You smack your hand to the side of his head and his beanie slides forward as he grunts.

“Gonna grab a soda,” you mutter because Bart’s giving you this look like he knows too much about you and you want to give reason to why you were even standing in the first place, a reason that is not Lisa. You cut through the circle to the stairs.

After you grab your Buzz cola, you see a glint of her, black Mary-Janes and one leg of a skinny jean, in the living-room doorway. You step in and she gathers herself quickly, but not enough for you to miss her crumpled, muttering, knees pulled to her chest form.

“Nelson,” Lisa says, all prim and proper. She’s got her back straight and her legs ordered in a slant. If this is her trying to, like, impress you or show off her skills, or something, it’s kind of misguided given her current company. You sit in the loveseat and amplify your slouch even worse than it is to drive that point home. She sighs and leans back against the couch cushions.

“Who’s Mr. Gianto?” 

Lisa’s face screws up at the question and she takes a good moment of staring fervently at the backdoor before she speaks.

“A prick.” 

You huff a chuckle.

“Uh, yeah, duh. Figured that one out,” you say. She half allows a smile at her lap before going back to her scowl. The partial smile gives you a full one, “so, who is he?”

“He’s the teacher who leads the jazz band. Which I have not been accepted into. Because of stupid, pigheaded, misogynistic, Mr. Gianto.”

Okay, well, her anger is actually pretty damn justified, then. Jazz band may be one of the most socially outcasting clubs at school, but even so, Lisa, in your experience, can make jazz a very small minuscule bit cool. This Gianto is trashing his star player. Fuckin’ prick is right.

“That’s really stupid,” you admit earnestly. Lisa throws her head back with a huff.

“I know! And you wanna know why, huh?” She tilts back up, dead set on you, as your agreement has made you a ready target for her rant. You shift on your hands. Guess you’ll take it.

“Why?”

“He said, due to my age, I lack the emotional maturity to perform truthful jazz. That I don’t have the experience. He said that. That I don’t have proper jazz experience. Me! And-and, then he said t-that I should try next YEAR! I can't, I just can’t…”

“That sucks,” you reply as she teters off.

“I guess everyone thinks I’m a little kid.”

Oh. You get the whole pot deal now, and find it sort of laughably sweet that she thinks smoking has anything to do with her current problem, or maturity at all. It hasn’t made you feel any older, just higher, and more hungry. The silence stays, her non-said ask for weed and your non-said denial of it in the air, and you won’t break it. 

“C’mon, why won’t you guys let me just smoke with you?” Lisa squeaks after a while of you not talking. You groan, now ready to pawn her off to Bart or Milhouse so she can complain to them.

“No.”

“Pleaaase, Nelson,” she begs. The way Lisa says your name tugs at you a bit, stretching out the first syllable too much, and wow, it’s been a long time since she’s had a reason to use your name. You won’t give in, though. 

“No, Lisa, I mean, how old are you even?” You know the answer, still remember her actual birthday from elementary school when she’d send you invites to her parties that had themes like My Little Pony or Angelica Button that made you wanna barf, but you still are hoping having Lisa say her age out loud will snap her out of her crazy.

“Thirteen,” she grits through her teeth.

“Well, that’s too young,” you tell her as you scan the carpet to avoid her eyes. 

“How old were you then, when you started smoking weed?”

Fuck.

“Um, I . . .” you stutter. Lisa is too smart for you. Why the hell did you come in here? She’s gotten you stuck in her cleverness, and now you’ve got no path out. Fuck her cleverness, “I was, like, thriteen, but, look-”

“See! Now you have to let me!”

Damn it. You check the room, still empty of anyone else, obviously. You have a joint in your hoodie pocket. Bart might start sniffing around for you soon, but they are all probably too high to even care by now. And if he does find you two, well, screw it, you’ll blame it on Lisa.

“Okay, well, where do you want to do this?”

She squeals, clapping her hands together, and you give her a look to quiet it down. She nods, reorganizing herself into her attempt of looking grown up. You snort.

“Um, sorry, the treehouse will be fine.”

You nod. You stand up and she follows behind you out to the back, and Jesus, what the hell are you even doing?

Lisa studies you with her lazer focus as you take your lighter, start off the joint with two big gulps of breath, and blow the smoke up to the wooden roof. 

“Woah,” she whispers.

“Here.” You hold the joint out here, backing up because she’s gotten too close for comfort. Lisa takes it from you, holding it like it's made of porcelain and scans it all over. You’re sure she’s categorizing and storing this in her report of this event in her mind. It will be a story in her glorious autobiography one day. You’ll be a story, too.

She gags violently on both of hits and you take the joint away from her after that and finish it off.

“How you feeling?” you ask a few minutes after she’s done. Bart has texted you where you are, and you’re not answering.

“G-great, duuude,” she eases, then falls over so you have to catch her and get her sitting back up. Violent laughter erupts out of her, “Oh my GOD, this is insane!”

“Watch yourself,” you mumble, sort of aggravated. This was so fucking stupid. Now Lisa will tell everyone once she sobers up that  _ you _ got her high, Marge is gonna hate you, Bart will never let you come over and eat his food ever again, and everything will go to shit. But Lisa, with a dopey grin, looks over at you and you push your anger to the side.

“Hey,” she grins over at you, staring too directly into your eyes, and you shrink.

“Um, hi.”

“Remember when y-you kissed me?”

Your entire face goes red. Yeah, you goddamn remember. You remember because it was your first kiss, and her lip smackers are still your favorite taste, and Sherri and/or Terri now are still not as good as she was when she was eight. But that is all really creepy.

“Um, sort of, yeah,” you say as quietly as you can. Lisa pouts at this and she starts crawling, literally crawling on her knees and hands over to you, tripping and flopping because  _ you  _ gave her too much weed. You back up until you are as cornered as available.

“Do you wanna kiss me now, Neeeelsoon?” Lisa sing-songs. That is not a question you’re going to answer, not even in your head. You stand up fast and you must’ve gotten taller since the last time you’ve been here, cause your head slams on the wood. It stings like a mother fucker on the back of your skull. And Lisa just laughs and laughs.

It’s about time you leave. So you do. Even when Lisa is complaining at you and grabbing half-heartedly at your arms as you get a foot onto the rope ladder, you leave. You get on your bike and leave not just her, but the Simpson house as a whole, with no texts to Bart or Milhouse or Jimbo. 

Lisa Simpson is goddamn insane.


	4. Sixteen

You’re on your bike and getting out of your house because your mom has been drinking Vodka, which makes her angry and start blaming you for Dad leaving, when you end up at the Simpson house, as you seem to do way too often, and you are hit with the image of Lisa wiping up her wet eyes on the porch.

From some sort of instinctual bodily reaction to Lisa Simpson in pain, you skid to a stop, walk your bike across patchy grass, and halt at the front steps, staring down at her. She straightens up and sucks in her lips, giving you a look up under damp lashes that’s in between questioning and embarrassment.

“Yes?” Lisa shoots. Your eyes flit over to the house to avoid her accusation, but you don’t move from your spot. Her eyes are  _ so  _ red. 

“You okay, kid?”

“Not a kid!” she informs, as she always does, and huffs, “What are you even doing here?”

You shrug the question off your shoulders. On the ride over, the Simpson house hadn’t been your chosen destination, hadn’t had any destination other than not being your mom, but, you don’t know, this place pulls you in. It’s old and chipping around the edges, but Mrs. Simpson always asks you about your day, and there’s Bart. And there’s Lisa, which is a whole other matter. So, there’s that. 

“So, uh, you were crying, huh? I saw that you-”

“That’s not really your business, is it?” Lisa grumbles, her cheeks reddening. You pull back, just a bit, cause her anger is unusually sharp. She sighs and her hand comes up to pull her under eyes even puffier, “Do you remember the freshman fall bash?”

“Sort of.” And by that you mean, you remember not getting a date because Sherri was pissed at you for being rude to her mom, or some shit, and the other girl you thought about asking, the one with shiny red hair and a pretty laugh, scoffed when you had only said hi. You spent the night shooting beebees at moldy cardboard boxes. 

“So, mine is coming up in around a week and I don’t have a date,” Lisa informs and your face scrunches in surprise. As from what you last heard from Bart, when you asked in the least obvious way possible how Lisa had been doing, she was on the board for planning a Model UN with all the schools from the county and having Mrs. Simpson drive her to a weekly open mic night at a jazz bar. In comparison to that, all that college admission, character building shit, dating seems like it’s below Lisa’s level. You always figured, even for all her little crushes you’ve been privy to, that boys didn’t affect her. 

“Sorry, sucks,” you mutter, feeling weird and twitchy in your skin, ready to leave this confusing Lisa, “Is Bart here?”

“He’s at the canyon, hanging out with Millhouse,” Lisa says into her palm and you spark with an idea, less than ideal, but something.

“You could go with Millhouse?” you offer, though regret saying it because it makes it sound like she should have to settle for Millhouse, which you both know she shouldn’t, and you don’t really want to be standing here trying to figure her out right now, but you’re not moving either. As expected, Lisa scoffs and brings her head up with a shake.

“I  _ don’t _ want to go with Millhouse, and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t want to go with me, either. He’s preoccupied.”

“What?” Last time you checked, which might not have been for a while, but still, Millhouse was falling over his feet in love for Lisa. She smirks, briefly. 

“Nevermind,” she says, “and, I-I think I’ll skip it anyways, whatever.”

“Okay.” Maybe you’ll go now, cause you’re not going to sit around convincing her to go to some freshman dance that you give less than half a fuck about, but Lisa’s knees are wobbling and she still looks too close to upset for you to go.

“Yeah, so, great, then. I won’t go.” Lisa nods, tight, her throat taut with stress. After a moment of watching her trying to settle on her statement, you grunt down into sitting next her. She shuffles over, just a bit, so the toe of her Vans bump your tennis shoe. 

“Did something happen, or . . .” you ask and Lisa’s hand twitches up to rub under her eyes again.

“Yeah, it’s . . . nothing, I don’t . . . it’s this stupid boy. Or. Maybe just boys in general.”

“Fuck ‘em,” you huff out. You have no words of defense for boys, in general, cause they’re all stupid and dick-driven, some more than others. You are just as bad, most of, if not all of the time. It’s in your nature, to be that way, but you can admit it likely sucks for the Lisa Simpsons of the world. 

“I just wish that being smart, that it didn’t mean, b-being disliked and mistreated by the uneducated masses. I don’t understand how boys would rather have some sort of girl like Terri who makes herself an idiot for them, than a girl with a mind,” she says with her eyes steeled on a point of weedy grass in front of her, her brows working together. Her eyes go wide and she does her half a gasp, so prim and proper you almost have to laugh, “oh, sorry! You’re dating Terri, right? I didn’t mean that she-”

“Nah, Sherri, and we broke up last week,” you correct. It’s your sixth breakup so far. You don’t know how you keep getting back together as you never remember which one of you starts it back up again. It always happens though, without much thought, out of boredem, because you like her tits and she likes your, fuck, you don’t even know. You think maybe one time she said you have sexy arms.

“Sorry to hear that,” Lisa says, you think earnestly. You shrug and don’t want to admit to her that you’ll be dating Sherri again by Halloween. You need to get the topic off you.

“Um, anyways, just wanted to say a few things. Boys are fucking horny idiots, all the time, high school dances really don’t matter, and um, don’t dumb yourself down for guys, because it . . . it’s not worth it. The guys I mean, they’re not worth it,” you say, the last part fading off. Her eyes, still red, are too much, so you stare at her hands instead. And, fuck, you don’t know when it hit you but you really want to hold her hand, her hand with its neatly filed nails and soft back. You want to be holding her hand so much that you feel it everywhere on yourself, that you have to dig your nails into your own palms just to stop from doing it, “You wanna go shoot my gun?”

You watch as Lisa’s face goes into a near snarl and you lose the brownie points you’ve saved up in the conversation. And, yeah, well, you were pretty stupid to ask because in elementary school she staged a Boys and Girls Against Guns rally, she  _ hates _ guns, but the fingers of her left hand were curling around her wrist and you couldn’t think much sense. 

“Um, no? And I think that the fact that you, a sixteen year old, own one is indicative of the lack of proper gun safety in this country,” she sneers back. You think that maybe telling her you only shoot beer bottles and old photos of your dad, never animals, and definitely never people will help, but you don’t. You shrug, meek, and stay with your head between the walls of your shoulders as you study her. She holds her anger for another hefty minute, and again you think you should just go, cause you don’t go for this dramatic shit, but after that minute she falls into not really a smile, but something edging towards being happy, “but, if we can go somewhere with no lethal firearms, I wouldn’t mind having something to do.”

“Okay,” you say, and your heart does a hop and a turn, “okay, yeah.”

You can work with this, with the offer, because you have a bike you can fit her on the front of and you only have like thirteen dollars on you but you’d spend it on her, if needed. Lisa stands up on sure footing, like she’s been put on reset to her determined self, unaffected by boys, righted. You stand, too.

“Take me somewhere, Nelson,” she says as she hovers by your bike, pressing at the rust on the handles. Your love for her is back, if it ever even stopped, which is unlikely. It was just lying dormant, hiding somewhere behind your guts, ready for its moment to come again, jumping back up, in remission but never killed. You love Lisa, then, and now as she waits at your bike for somewhere to go, but you have no fucking clue where to put that love. 

You get on the seat of your bike, and Lisa hops on your handles. 


	5. Seventeen

You don’t think that by this point it should be a surprise to anyone who has even a passing knowledge of you that you’re finally dropping out of high school.

In all truth, they are probably more surprised that you lasted as long as you did, figuring dropping was only a matter of time for you. You’re proud of that, you guess, that you were able to coast on low C’s, even one B+ in autoshop, and make it to the point of being considered a senior. But, high school is worth shit, anyways, so you don’t care too much. You gave it a try and got to the last year, mostly as a fuck you to those who thought you wouldn’t, driven soley on the ambition to not be a stereotype, but, the point of all that is beginning to be lost on you, as is the point of caring about what people say about you behind your back. It’s all so pointless, child level crap. And you don’t feel like a kid anymore, not treated like one by your mom or your teachers or the fucking cops, so why stay at a place made for kids?

When you told your friends you were dropping, it was given barely five minutes of conversation. Bart had said something like ‘wish my mom would let me do that’ and Millhouse had elbowed him and muttered ‘dude’. They left it at that, but Lisa, however she found it, did not do the same. 

“What the fuck, Nelson!” Lisa spits when she finds you on the football stands. You’re on your back on one of the long benches, staring down at the field as the track team makes its laps. You sit up with a grunt and turn to Lisa, who looks beyond pissed. 

“Uh, hi, Lis’,” you say as you scan her, finding her in a white knuckled, locked shoulder stance. 

“You’re dropping out of school? Seriously?” 

You have a moment of liking her concern for you, but it’s gone once you realize that she’s about to lecture. You huff. 

“Yep.”

“Why would you want to do something so stupid?” Lisa demands with a nasty glare. You shrug and don’t know what to tell her, because you don’t have much of a reason, really. It’s the idea of being a senior, sort of, and the graduation, the dances, the final projects, the pressure, and everyone likely doing better than you. But, you don’t need to make an explanation for her, cause it really shouldn’t matter to her either way. It’s your fucking life.

“I dunno. I’m pretty stupid,” you say. Lisa's forehead creases at the comment, which has just gotten her further into her anger. 

“Okay, so, well, no school! You’re just going to give up. What are you going to do with no GED?” Lisa asks. 

“Work.” There’s an auto repair shop that one of your mom’s old boyfriends runs and he said he could get you a job. The idea of your own money is exciting -you’re sick of having your life funded by your mom’s stripping- and, outside of that, having your hands on cars and motors all day sounds amazing.

“You could do that and go to school. I do, like, fifteen hours a week volunteering at the aquarium.”

Your head lulls down against your chest. The reminder of her success in all ways doesn’t make you want to drop out any less. Lisa sighs down next to you, though she keeps her distance, tight and tense. 

“What about our lunches?” Lisa says, softly. You suck in a breath and watch as the track coach calls a huddle, a series of green athletic shorts clumping together. She’s gotten you where it counts, your love for her, which is deep and weighty and still mostly unacknowledged. The lunches are nice, on their weekly basis. You two will sneak out, something you never thought you’d see Lisa Simpson do, and she’ll use her allowance to buy you both frozen yogurt. You feel guilty for not paying for it, but she’ll say it’s payment enough to be able to vent to you about her classmates. You never do much of the talking but it’s enough to watch her face as she does.

“I’ll miss those, yeah,” you say with a small inch closer to her. 

“Then why are you leaving?” Lisa snarls back over to you, her break of calm dying on her lips. You toss your head back with a groan.

“Fuck, Lisa. My life here sucks. You wouldn’t get it.” Lisa shoots up at this, pressing her palms to the bench to bound herself up. 

“Oh, really? I wouldn’t get it? Have you met my dad?” Lisa likes to think that because she’s grown up with Homer that she knows what your life is like. You know Homer; he throws up from drinking on their carpet most months, he misses some of Lisa’s million extracurriculars for bowling nights with guys from his work, he says the wrong things more than the right, but he sticks around, at least, and loves his kids, that must be said. Not to mention Marge. Lisa has Marge. She can never understand what it’s like for you, for having your mother.

“You don’t understand,” you mutter. Lisa’s arms, that had been tossed out in front of her, fall with a slap against her thighs. Your hand is held to your mouth to keep any of the angry bullshit building up from spilling out. It’s not like you think Lisa’s got it perfect, you know people bully her and her family life is not the American dream, far from it, but, shit, compared to you, with her grades and her future before her, she’s practically floating. She hasn’t seen the reality of how you live, only scraped at it. Maybe that’s for the best.

Lisa’s pacing now and you’re hit with a bit of worry to see her moving so fast across the thin metal benches; her feet are already slipping here and there.

“Lis’ . . .”

She turns back and almost stumbles before she steadies herself, steadies herself to stare you down.

“I am so sick of you giving in with this defeatist attitude! You always get this way. Instead of trying, you just decide to confirm what everyone else is already thinking and act like white trash!” Lisa screeches out and your jaw locks.

“I’m not white trash-”

“I didn’t say that! I said you were  _ acting  _ like it. Actually, I think you’re not at all white trash, which is why it drives me crazy when you do things like get a million detentions, or flunk a test, or try to drop out of school, because I know you’re better than that, Nelson!”

“Maybe I’m not. Not better than that.” You are white trash, no matter how much you hate to admit it, and probably will be for the rest of your life. It’s the kind of shit you don’t shake. 

“Oh, would you stop it!” Lisa yells, and now she’s the one pulling in closer, breath on your face. You look at her and her face shifts, not softer, really, but not mad. There is a certainess in her eyes Your skin goosebumps but you ignore it and glare back.

“No, I-” Lisa shuts up whatever you were saying with a kiss. 

Oh, God, oh fucking Christ, how you’ve wanted this. In every lunch, in every time you two cross in the hallway at her house, in every too long glance at her. Your heart is jamming around in your ribcage and even as she keeps kissing you, even as you find it in yourself to place a hand onto her lower back, you can’t fucking wrap your mind around this. She was never supposed to want you back, it seemed stupid to even hope, but, fuck, she does, and it’s so good. Her cotton candy chapstick is gone, replaced by some tropical fruit lip balm, and yet you still feel like your ten again, stealing time with a girl you don’t really deserve. 

“You are worth something,” Lisa says, slow, regaining her breath as she pulls away. The flush of her cheeks and the heavy fall of her breath is helping you to feel this is real. She sucks in her bottom lip, “To me, you really are.”

“So . . . uh, so, do you . . . like me or-”

“Yes, Nelson, duh. For like forever. C’mon,” Lisa grunts like it’s so obvious. It never was. It still isn’t, sort of. You lick both of your lips, because if she isn’t going to kiss you again, you want to save something. Fuck, please let her kiss you again. You know you’ll do anything for it and, more importantly, you know what she wants.

“I won’t drop out.” You give in. Lisa beams, and you figure she had this planned all along. Came up to the bleachers with the plan to kiss you. She plans shit like that. She’s so fucking smart. 

You don’t need to say anything else. She kisses you again and again and again and again.

You are floating.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OH BOI  
THEY KISS  
pls review it makes this whole game worthwhile


	6. Eighteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay this is LONG.   
As Nelson and Lisa get older, these will probably all be a bit longer! just fyi :)
> 
> Also sexual content CW
> 
> Please review

Prom doesn’t rank high on your list of priorities, never has and never will. You won’t look right in a suit, despite what Lisa tells you, and it’s not like you can afford a corsage, or a fancy dinner out, or limo money, or anything more than the million year old tux you’ll be renting. You didn’t think prom mattered much to your girlfriend, either, outside the emotional depth it could give her as a major high school event, but, a month or so ago, Lisa had said you two were going. So, you’re going. 

You’re meeting her at her house at five-thirty and you’re taking her to prom.

“Hey,” Bart says, there to greet you at the door. His suit is in the same low price rental bracket as yours, but he wears it pretty good. You tug at your own jacket, which is short for your arms. Bart pulls your hand into a shake and leans to you to whisper, “I have a flask.” 

“Nice,” you mutter and let yourself get tugged into the house. Marge is in the living room helping Homer figure out one of their old cameras for tonight, distracted enough that you two can dip into the kitchen. You take the flask when Bart hands it to you without asking what’s in it. Thoughts of dancing and mingling with Lisa’s AP people make you want to loosen up. It’s cinnamon whiskey, which is alright, at least for what you need it to do. 

“Lisa’s been watching make-up tutorials all day. And Mom did her hair all fancy and shit. She’s pretty serious about this,” Bart informs. Your heart thrums. Lisa doesn’t do make-up since she read a quote in a feminist essay that called it the ‘greatest suppressor of female power’, and it’s not like you think she needs it. She’s perfect without any help, obviously, but the idea of seeing her done up feels overwhelming, and, yeah, you’re excited, but also fucking sure you won’t stack up. You trimmed your hair and shaved, though, and that must be something, right? You’ll fall flat no matter what, it’s a damn fact, but you tried. You only do that for her. You grab for the flask again. 

Millhouse shows up with his mom and her and Marge get a photo of you three boys before Lisa makes any appearance. Your hands go jittery trying to picture what’s taking her so long. 

Millhouse and Bart are going ‘dateless’, or, well, that’s what they’re saying. You do know there’s no girls coming along with them. But, from the way Bart is toying with the buttons on Millhouse’s blazer and what you’ve figured out from all Lisa’s coy explanations, you think that going stag is not the right word for it. Looking at Millhouse, who has a nose whose face never caught up with it and toothpick arms, you fail to see how he’s made Bart jump ship on girls all together. Bart’s happy when he’s around, though, and stirs less shit. You don’t wanna look any further into it.

“Son,” Homer huffs with a clap of a hand on your back. 

“Homer,” you reply with a smirk and he frowns. You’re not the guy he wants dating his daughter, not the type any dad wants, and maybe that’s why you’ve never tried to prove anything to him. Also, you’ve seen him drunk off his ass enough that you were never going to call him ‘sir’. 

“You get her a corsage? Huh?” he questions. You nod, so tired by his act of protective father. You did. Lisa loaned you the money for it, but you did.

“Yep. It’s waiting in the fridge,” you say. He narrows his eyes at you. You want to snort at his judgement and wonder if he knows his son is gay. Marge probably does- women always know shit like that, their sixth sense or something, but you bet Homer doesn’t. For some reason, you feel goddamn smug having this knowledge over him, “I’m gonna get it out. For when she comes down.” 

Homer flicks up his chin at you and puffs his chest, before he falls and goes off mumbling to the ground. You don’t think he hates you, and you don’t hate him, either, only like to piss him off. It’s just that he knows what you both know, what you won’t admit; you’re not meant for someone like Lisa. 

This fact is running through you when Marge says she’s going to check and see if Lisa is ready. You hook Bart’s arm and drag him to the kitchen again.

“You ok-”

“I need your flask.” Your hand is stretched out to him, begging, and Bart’s eyeing it. Lisa is gonna hate if you're buzzed before you get to the dance, she’s gonna yell at you, but this is who you are. This is the fuckup she’s dating, the guy who drinks all her brother’s booze to deal with high school dances. It’s her fault if she thought more of you. You get the flask out of Bart’s hand and pour it down your throat for a solid amount of time before he stops you.

“Fuck, dude, I’m trying to get through the whole night with this. You can’t just-shit, are you alright? You look . . . you’re really red, Nelson,” Bart says and your face is getting hot. You hand him back his alcohol and run your hands down across your flushed cheeks. 

“Guys?” Millhouse says as he pokes his head into the room, “Lisa’s ready. They want us to start pictures.”

You push your shit down for the moment, deciding that you at least wont fuck up  _ yet _ , and shove Bart aside to get the corsage. White carnations. Her dress is black, she said, and you thought they’d stand out. 

You are all out of the kitchen and in the entryway and Lisa is on the stairs and she is like you’ve never seen her before.

“Maggie was helping me out with, um, all this,” she says with a smile and gestures at her face, which has glittery eyes and red lips. She turns to Maggie, who you just now see is also on the stairs, and they share a giddy laugh. 

“Lisa,” Marge says, her hand over her heart, “sweetheart, you look gorgeous!” 

Lisa shrugs, mutters a thank you, and shifts on her heels. Her eyes move to you, her lashes insanely long. 

“Do you like the dress?”

You do. It’s deep and dark and long enough you can barely see her toes peeking out at the bottom. It makes her look as grown-up on the outside as she is on the inside. You, you’re still pretty certainly eighteen. Your mouth is not working, you guess, so you nod. 

“Oh, I-pictures! I want a million pictures,” Marge declares, clapping her hands together, and Ms. Van Houten agrees. Lisa takes the chance to remove herself from her stair perch and get to you. She is, thank God, less overwhelming when she’s level with you. 

“You okay?” she asks with her palms coming up to your cheeks and steadying your eyes on her. 

“I’m fine,” you say. Up close, you can see that she is still Lisa under everything, which helps, “you look really good.”

Lisa should get more, she looks more than ‘really good’, but you don’t have the right words. She gets it, though, and beams.

“You do, too! Oh my gosh, Nelson, you’re such a gentleman in a suit! Who knew? I love it.” 

“Stop,” you snort, but she actually means it, and that does make you feel less like shit. With the way Lisa is smiling, you feel almost good now. 

You get through pictures, which take forever. You get through dinner at Luigi’s and the guilt over having to let Lisa cover your meal. You get through the dance security check, all of you, which makes you and Bart sigh relief. You get there, all that’s left is to actually do the prom thing. 

Your group stakes claim to a table in the back of the gym and Lisa places her purse on the seat next to you. 

“I’m going to go say hi to Peter. You wanna come with me?” Lisa asks. Your lip curls down. Peter’s a tool who likes to quote old philosophy dudes and shove in your face how much more he knows about politics than you. But, he’s class president and Lisa is treasurer, so you see more of him than you like. 

“Nah,” you mutter, kicking a foot up on the chair across from you. Lisa’s lips purse. She nods and you swallow down whatever her narrowed eyes are making you feel. She turns on her heels and leaves as you watch her with half-lidded, down-turned eyes.

“Here,” Bart says as his hand shoves against yours under the table cloth. Your grasp finds hold of the flask. A buzz is already coming over you, has been coming as an undercurrent since dinner, so you probably shouldn’t take this. You do anyways, in a quick flick up to your mouth after you scan around for any watching chaperones. 

Peter is hitting on Lisa. He’s staring at her tits, the way the neckline of her dress hugs them up, and he’s laughing at everything she says. He doesn’t usually do that. He’s an ass to Lisa most days, that’s part of why you hate him. But now he’s looking at her like he’s never seen her before, like he wants her. He’s not the only one who’s looking. Lots of guys are; at her backless dress, at the way it falls on her hips, at the slit of the fabric starts mid-way on her thigh. They are fucking oogling her. You don’t think you’re a jealous boyfriend, but you’ve never really had the chance to be. You and her stay in your outsider world together, where you have Lisa all to yourself, where others don’t look, until tonight. 

Lisa leaves her crowd of watching nerds after a hefty five minutes and comes back to you. Bart and Millhouse have left already for the snack table and you are alone in your bubbling up aggression. 

“Having fun?” you grunt at her as Lisa approaches, blush-covered cheeks and all. 

“Huh?” she asks. You sigh and your eyes trail down her body. She is so incredible, every part of her, and you can’t fault others for noticing, you guess. 

“Nothing,” you mutter, “wanna dance?”

Lisa’s grin grows into her cheeks. She extends her hand and you grab at it, tight and certain. All the guys here can look and, for reasons you’ll never figure out, she’ll pick you. You stand and let her take you to a corner of the dance floor. 

It’s not a slow song, which you would’ve liked better, actually, but a fast-paced and booming one that’s making Lisa hop up and bounce on her heels every few seconds. You’re not keeping up well. 

“Are you doing okay?” Lisa checks, and it feels like her hundredth check-up of the night, but you nod and let your hands land on her, one on her hip and the other on the wide stretch of her open back. 

“M’ fine,” you mumble, your thumb rubbing across her hip bone. The dress is soft and moves in easy circles with your touch. She smells so good, so crisp and sweet, and you wanna kiss her. With your hold on her, you tug her up to you and press your lips to hers. Lisa pulls back too soon and you linger after she does, in the scented air she’s left behind. 

“You’ve been drinking,” Lisa says flatly, not really a question at all, and stares at you with tight eyes. You pull back and suck in your lips, covered with a alcoholic twinge.

“Uh . . .” Your mouth falls open once, twice, but nothing comes of it. You can’t deny it, obviously, and you won’t try to defend yourself, either. You shrug. Lisa’s eyes flick away from you and your shoulders cave. 

“Since when?” she huffs. 

“I don’t know,” you grumble, shoving your hands deep into your pockets. Lisa turns her gaze onto you, taking none of your shit, and you grimace, “um, back at the house, with your brother.”

“Oh my God,” Lisa mutters. She drags a hand along her face and disrupts some of her carefully placed glitters, “it’s prom, Nelson. Can you just . . . just . . . whatever . . . I’m going to the bathroom.” 

“Lis’,” you sigh and your hands push up against the fabric of your pants. They can’t seem to decide what to do with themselves. Lisa gives you another quick look, direct and stabbing and leaves the dance floor without a word more. 

“Fuck,” you hiss. You look up and around you. Bart and Millhouse are in some discrete corner of the gym, giggling at each other’s jokes, Sherri is dancing in the center of the room with some preppy jerk wad, and you feel ridiculously out of place here. You are fundamentally wrong for prom, which has been made clear as all hell. 

So, you push your way off the floor and out the side doors to fulfill your destiny and smoke a couple of cigarettes. If you get caught, you’ll probably get kicked out, but you decide to take that risk. 

The wind is enough that you can barely keep your lighter on, but you manage and light your cigarette. You take a long, rough drag off it and slide down against the wall. It’s somewhere between five minutes and a half hour of stewing in the weight of your own shit and watching the clouds in the sky before Lisa comes out and leans on the section of brick next to you, her arms crossed over her chest. 

“You’re going to get expelled doing that on campus,” she snips. You roll your eyes. 

“I don’t think that Springfield High School cares enough to go through the work of expelling me just for smoking,” you laugh lowly. 

“Well, you still shouldn’t do it here.” 

You shrug and let the uncomfortable silence sit between you two, sucking down on your cigarette. Lisa’s making little snorts and mumbles of upset over by your side and you’re running apologies in your head that aren’t making it to your mouth as you wait for her to actually say something.

“I was going to have sex with you tonight,” Lisa sighs, not looking at you as she delivers you that gutpunch, and you choke on your smoke. 

“W-what?” Your body jitters with a series of coughs and you feel a lot of stuff on top of each other. Your head is pounding trying to figure out what she wants you to say to that, because, honestly, how the fuck you are supposed to respond to a taken-back offer of viriginty is not in your skills, but, under that, a thrill of arousal at the idea slips down your spine. 

“I had been thinking about it for a while. I thought tonight would be special,” Lisa mutters, playing with some of her clinky silver bracelets. Her skin is flushing and you can feel your own heating up. The thought of how her dress would slip off her body so easy is sort of all you can think right now, but you’re pretty sure she’s still pissed off at you. You shouldn’t think about it, shouldn’t hope. 

“I don’t want to now, though,” she says.

“Okay,” you mumble. It makes sense, cause your acting like the fuck-up she’s convinced herself you’re not, and you wouldn’t want to sleep with you either. Though, your chest still slumps at the news. 

More silence follows. Lisa is very, very much not silent for the majority of your time with her, and quiet feels bad now. It feels like she’s not really there. Makes you scared. It’s another long time before she takes in a big breath and stares down at you with furrowed brows. 

“I love you. You know that, right?” 

“I love you, too?” you reply, not knowing why this now, not keeping with wherever she’s gone, stuck in your own smoke and confusion. She huffs a large puff of air out her nose.

“That’s why I’m like this. I get mad at you when you make stupid choices or do things that you know are bad for you because I love you. I love you enough that I trust you can do better.”

“Sorry I suck at being better,” you mumble, a hint of anger deep under your words because you’re sick of Lisa thinking you’re so much better. She’s so sure of it, that under your stupid there’s great, that you almost want her to figure out that it’s bad all the way through. Then you wouldn’t have to work so hard. Lisa groans at your response. 

“That’s not what I’m saying at all! You’re so . . . so . . . frustrating!” she yelps, on the start of pacing. You trace her movements and finish off your cigarette. 

“Sorry,” you say around it and Lisa pulls a snarl. 

“Stop apologizing, Nelson.” Lisa shoots you a heavy-lidded glare and you guess you’ve fucked up again. You stamp out your cigarette and push off the ground. 

“Fuck, Lisa! What do you want me to do? Just tell me what the fuck you want me to do. Cause I don’t know!” you shout, too rough, and Lisa’s eyes start to water. Oh God, oh fucking God, this is the worst possible thing. Your heart shakes around inside you and you know you’ll fall into nothing if she crys, “Oh, Jesus, I didn’t . . . Lis’, I don’t know why I-”

“Let’s go, okay? Prom sucks and I suck and everything sucks. I wanna go,” she mumbles. You fall into pieces at her voice, but nod and let her lead the way towards the parking lot, trying not to think about how an hour ago she was in love with you enough to have sex with you. 

Lisa shows you to the car you came in, Homer’s pink Sedan, and pulls the keys out of her purse. 

“What about Bart and Millhouse?” you ask as Lisa unlocks the driver’s side door. 

“We’ll come back for them later.”

The use of ‘we’ gives you a slice of hope that she’s not going to get rid of you as soon as she can. Going back to your run down house in your suit, alone and coming off a buzz, is not something you want to do yet. You slip into the passenger seat and let her drive in silence. 

Lisa doesn’t take the left turn to get to your house or the right a bit later for hers. She’s driving up a curvy road to a place you don’t know, but she looks so sure of wherever it is that you don’t question it. When she stops, you are at a desolate parking lot for mountain park.

“I . . .” Lisa starts, focused outside the windshield and in the nest of trees. She sighs, a sigh that is both nervous and certain, and switches to staring at you, “I don’t want you to worry about being ‘better’ right now. I know I put pressure on you, to try to be like me, but, I . . . I’m not trying to make you feel bad about yourself. I love you, Nelson. I get annoyed, but I love you as you.”

“I love you, too. I’m sorry I-”

“Don’t apologize. Just-let’s just be here, with each other, okay?” Lisa says. You nod, you want that, want to be anywhere she is. You still in anticipation as she unbuckles herself, makes her way over the divider, and settles herself onto your lap. 

“Lisa?”

She answers you with a kiss, steady and persistent. Her tongue crosses past your teeth and into your mouth, making you regret your cigarette and your smoky taste. Lisa won’t usually kiss you if you’ve been smoking. She doesn’t seem to care now, though, as she presses her palms flat to your chest and brings your bottom lip between her teeth. You shiver against her and she pulls back, briefly, to start slipping off her dress's loose straps.

“I changed my mind. I want to have sex.”

“Yeah, I-yeah, okay,” you say, your breath stilling as both straps fall and the top half of Lisa’s dress goes with them. You’ve touched her under bras and underwear before, but it’s always under clothes or sheets, always fast and nervous and leaves you wanting more. This is different, so goddamn different, with her breasts lit by the moonlight and her face clear of any doubt as she presents them. Slowly, you cup one, running a thumb along a nipple. Lisa’s breath hitches and readjusts. 

“With Sherri, did you guys-”

“No. Never sex,” you reply quickly. This girl in your lap, this girl who probably owns way too much of you, Lisa fucking Simpson, will be your first time. First kiss, first time, first everything that really matters. Shit, the reality of that scares you. But, Lisa smiles at you, runs a hand over the tent in your pants, and you melt into this moment.

The condom she has is a cherry pie flavored one she got from Planned Parenthood. The back seat is too small. You both elbow each other in the gut a couple of times by accident. You cum too fast. She almost can’t find her underwear after. You leave a stain on the seat. But, who the fuck even cares about all that? You’re here with her and you’re in love. That’s good enough for you.

“I love you so much,” Lisa whispers against your sweaty chest as her eyes struggle to stay open. You shouldn’t let her fall asleep; you still have to go get Bart and Millhouse. Though, you’ll let her drift for a moment. You whisper your love back.

You’ll be graduating in a month. Millhouse is heading off to a fancy school a state over and you really don’t know how Bart will handle that. Lisa will be leaving for Yale, Harvard, or Stanford in around a year. You don’t know where you will be. You remember what Lisa told you, though, and try to just be here, in this moment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reviews are appreciated on my Nelson Muntz manifesto!


	7. Nineteen

It’s a stupidly hot Wednesday in the middle of August, the kind of hot that pushes down on you and won’t let up, and you are on Lisa’s bed under the air vent trying to cool down. She is buzzing around her room and putting her stuff into labeled boxes. She will get on a plane to go to California and move into the Stanford dorms in three days. You’ve been keeping track for a while now. It’s not like you’re counting the minutes and seconds or whatever, but, yeah, it’s three days until she leaves. You’re staying. 

“Are you taking this?” you huff with a smirk, tossing Lisa’s  _ Happy Little Elves  _ plush up above you. Lisa turns to you, her lips pressed into a tense straight line, and she snatches it from your hands in mid-air. You laugh and she still doesn’t smile. 

“No. I’m donating it,” Lisa says, though she puts the plush down next to her ‘SENTIMENTAL ITEMS’ box in a gentle way. She’s been snippy and tight since you’ve been here, has been for a few days actually, which is irritating but not surprising. It’s how she deals with her anticipation, all her nerves and plans and preparation come together to leave her stressed. You get off the bed and move to stand behind Lisa, smelling her hair and memorizing it; berries and fresh, scrubbed clean scalp. You go to kiss her head but she whips around to you quick, forehead crinkled deep. 

“What?” Lisa snips. You take two steps back and you fall into a frown. Her anger is sharp today, way more than you think you deserve. 

“Jesus, just trying to help you calm down. You’re all,” you throw your hands up and gesture loosely around her, “weird and shit.”

“Well, Nelson, I’m about to leave the state and make the biggest change of my entire fucking life. Maybe I’ve earned the right to be ‘weird and shit’!” Lisa yelps, her voice going high pitch and scratchy. She gulps once she’s gotten her words out and pulls away. You think of pulling away, too, and your hand palms around your cigarette box in your pocket. It’s what you want, for a second, to be alone outside, smoking without judgement and clear of any thoughts. You don’t, though, because you don’t run from Lisa anymore and you’re not screwing your last few days with her. You want all of the time you can get. 

“Yeah . . . yeah I know. Sorry,” you mutter. Lisa sighs and runs a hand down her face.

“It’s fine.” There’s something under her voice that you don’t like, something not fine. Your hands clench and you don’t mention it. 

“So, your flight is Saturday at ten am, right?” you ask. You know, Marge and Lisa have gone over the details of her trip enough that you have even the in-flight meal memorized, but you ask because it will give Lisa something to talk over for a while. It helps her, you’ve figured out, to talk a plan out. She said it’s like solidifying her desires, or something like that. Though, she doesn’t talk, only nods, tugging at loose threads at the seams of her elf. 

“I talked to Joe and got the whole morning off from the shop. We could do breakfast,” you go on. If there’s time in Lisa’s constructed schedule, you’d really like to have a breakfast just the two of you. There's a necklace you’ve bought her, nothing incredible but you did spend $100 of your paychecks on it and got it engraved. At breakfast, you’ll give it to her. You’ll put it around her neck latched tight enough that’ll hang around her collarbone, and then she’ll have it, this piece of you hanging with her as she is surrounded by California people who are smarter and richer and more sophisticated than you. 

Lisa swallows loud enough for you to hear and turns to you with her determined, set face. 

“We should talk.”

“Okay,” you say as your cheeks swarm with heat. It’s not okay, not okay to hear those words from her. They’re the words you’ve been expecting her to say for as long as you’ve been together. But you’ve forgotten them lately, let her warm(sometimes naked) body next to yours, her world she’s let you into, and her love for you erase them. You’ve gotten too secure, but that was a mistake. Lisa moves past you and sits on her bed, patting the spot next to her. You sit, your chest going shivery and tense. 

“I love you so much, Nelson. You are such an amazing, kind, complex person that I’m lucky to know,” Lisa says, her hands resting on your knee. The compliment sits uncomfortably on you and your brows knot up. You mumble a thank you.

“Our relationship is . . . it’s been surprising and beautiful. You, no matter what happens, will be my first love. You will always mean so much to me and-”

“Just say what you’re trying to say,” you huff at her. The praise and prose is only making all the shit and worry tossing around inside you that much worse. You can tell it’s the lead up for something awful as Lisa says it. She sucks in a breath that comes out as a sniffle and you blink your own eyes to keep them from watering. 

“I think we have to break up,” she whispers. 

You slam your eyes shut, because the idea of seeing Lisa’s face makes you feel like heaving. Her face; soft skin, light, so ridiculously light blue eyes, and big, pink lips covered in chapstick, has too much history to it for you to be able to stand right now. You open your eyes to stare down at your work boots, which are grinding into teal carpet and leaving marks. 

“Have to?” you ask. It’s pissing you off, that she’d said that, that she made it seem like this is out of her control. It’s not. This is her choice, plain and fucking simple; move away and leave you as another part of this town she hates. There is no need to it, all want. 

“I . . . I meant, long-distance wouldn’t work. I’ve done research. We will end up hating each other. I really don’t want that. I love you, Nelson, I don’t want us to just-just . . . I want us to end it on a good note,” Lisa explains, pressing her clammy hands harder and harder down on your thigh. You hate her stupid hands, you hate her arms and her force and the hot, hot summer air that are all surrounding you. You’re sweating

“You researched why you should break up with me,” you say, a little bit a question but mostly not. Lisa’s breath catches hard enough to hear before she speaks

“Statistically, sixty percent of long distance relationships end in break-ups.”

Resting on top of your knees, your fingers tremble. Anger, pointless resistance, and a not fully real sense of loss, all toss around inside you and shake you from inside out. You don't want to hear her numbers, her researched and grounded facts. This isn’t a research paper. You’re not going to be her project that she solves with key supporting claims and a great thesis. You need to mean more to her than being a project. You need to. 

“I don’t know why. . . .” you say, but stop. You do know why, you know why now, but the hurdle you can’t jump is acceptance. You think about Millhouse, of all people, who is currently far away at University of Nevada, who didn’t come home for summer, who broke up with Bart that Christmas. You think about Bart, who’s high on your couch more days than not, who still tries to call Millhouse often enough when he does that you have the little dweeb’s voicemail memorized, and you know that when it’s love, sometimes acceptance never comes. You don’t go on and a hefty silence follows. 

“Nelson . . .” Lisa whimpers after a minute and then, without any warning first, she falls into tears. 

Her tears drive you as crazy as her clinical approach did. The whiny pitch of her sharp inhales ring in your ears and your fingers go clenched and rigid at the noise. You don’t know why she’s crying. She’s gonna be just peachy-fucking-keen in Cali after she kicks you to the curb. She’s the one who chose this. She hasn’t earned her tears. You’ve never been this angry at her in your entire life. 

“Just shut it!” you screech as you push up off the bed. The room is getting even warmer and you think Marge or Homer clicked off the air. Lisa’s face, as you catch it in a quick glance, is shocked, shiny, and wobbly. You almost apologize to her, your need to make her happy and fix her problems fixed deep, deep in you. But you don’t. Because you shouldn’t. Because she wouldn’t do the same for you. 

“I . . . I-don’t talk to me like that! This is breaking my heart!” she huffs out through hot tears which make her face red and puffy. Your heart beats faster and, God, you’re so pathetic when it comes to Lisa, because your anger falls off you so easy. 

“Then why do it?” you ask, soft and just a bit rasped. Your throat is tight with tears that you aren’t letting go. Lisa sniffs and wipes at her eyes. 

“I invited you to go with me. I wanted you to. I wanted you there,” Lisa says, not an answer in any way. Your face falls.

She had invited you once, right after she got her acceptance letter. She’d gotten a full-ride scholarship, she’d explained, so you two could afford an apartment if you worked. And if you can do anything, you can work. You could get a job, she’d make the place nice, she’d get her degree(double major of music and political science) first and then you could get one, too, with her help. Or, well, that’s what Lisa had said. That part you weren’t sure you’d manage. Actually, you were full-on certain you couldn’t. You had told her no. 

“You knew I wasn’t gonna go,” you mutter. Lisa groans and you twist into yourself, arms around your chest and chin tucked. You feel so small, and stupid, and worthless. Stanford, California would have rejected you like a bad kidney. 

“You could!” Lisa exclaims, like you really could. Like, in three days you and the necklace you bought her could get on that Delta plane and fly off with her. You shake your head.

“I can’t.” Springfield has its grips on you so firm it’s almost a comfort. It’s a trash pile but you at least fit in there. 

“This is why. This is why I . . . I had to . . .” Lisa trails. She looks away from you but you stare at her full on, not sure how much longer you’ll get to do that. You try to understand her, one last time. She’s so goddamn confusing.

“Why what?” you ask, your hair stuck to your neck with sweat and anger building up over her and you and college and people you don’t even know in Stanford, people you know would reject you, “Why you had to dump me? Why you had to get rid of me before your real life starts? Why you had to make sure I-”

“I can’t become my mom!” Lisa shouts. You shut up and you take it in. Right. You’re Homer. That’s why. 

“I mean . . . I, no, it’s not, you’re not. Nelson, please-” Lisa backtracks, but her truth is out and as clear as it can be. You’re the fuck-up that she’s been fearing her whole life, the one that Marge suffered and the one she’d have to fight against. You’d better leave.

“Have a good time in California. Don’t try to call me,” you shoot and slam the door as Lisa whines your name. 

You get on your bike and burn the sidewalk with your tires, going so fast you fall when you stop and slice open your knee, blood making your denim crimson. You pop open a Duff at two pm in a sweltering, empty house and don’t bandage yourself. You tell Bart to fuck off when he asks to come over. You suck in beer and harsh breaths back to back so not to cry. You do all you can not to think, even in the times that follow this, the long times without her, about, on this awful, warm, oppressive day, the last thing you’d say to Lisa for the next year and a half. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pls review and pls don't kill me for breaking them up haha


	8. Twenty-One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was written in October entirely while watching Treehouse of Horrors, but yet it takes place on Christmas. I don't know why either lol  
Enjoy!

You’re coming off a long-ass shift at the auto-shop, walking home with grease stains unwashed from your fingers and winter coat hanging over your work shirt, when you spot Sherri and Terri stepping out of the Kwik-E-Mart. They’re each sucking down on Squishees and look almost as identical as they did in school, though Terri’s cut off half of her hair recently, probably in hopes of distinguishing herself by any means necessary.

“Hey, ladies!” you shout across the street and they turn to you as they share a mutual groan. You make your way over to them anyways. 

“Nelson,” Sherri greets, her lips a tight purse, “You’re looking well.”

You pull a smirk. The twins still live with their parents while they take classes at a community college in Eugene, so seeing them around town has become a regular occurrence. Sherri takes the chances to flirt with you when she’s bored and you take it in stride as the meaningless pastime it is. 

“You’re not too bad yourself, Sher,” you ease, and then flick your chin over at Terri, “Nice hair.”

“You smell like motor oil,” Terri snips with an ugly snarl to her lip. You shrug. 

“Yeah, well, that’s what happens when you fix cars for half the day. I work for a living."

Terri huffs and rolls her eyes, stepping back. 

“Whatever. Are you going over to Bart’s tonight?” she asks. Your brows fold together as you haven’t heard about anything happening at Bart’s, actually haven’t heard anything from Bart in a few days.

“What’s going on at Bart’s?”

“He’s having a massive party. He’s inviting everyone that’s back here for the holidays. Why wouldn’t he invite you? Did you piss him off or something?” Sherri prodes, a quick and aggressive edge to her words. You shrug and shove your hands away in your pockets, suddenly thrown off your grounding in this conversation. Terri eyes you for a second before she looks over to Sherri with a hidden smile. 

“It’s probably because Lisa’s there.”

“Lisa’s home?” you ask. The question jumps out of you before you have time to consider or withhold how interested you sound. 

“Yeah. We saw her at the mall. She grew her hair out. Oh! And she got her nose pierced. It looks totally awful,” Sherri says with a devious pleasure. You think she’s been jealous of Lisa since you two dated, not so much for anything to do with you, but because Lisa had something she thought she had claim over. She is so immature you almost can’t judge her for it. She narrows her eyes at you, “didn’t you know she was back?”

You shake your head. Last Christmas season was still in the deep of your anger and betrayal and utter loss, and it had been a point not to know if Lisa was home or not. It had been your mission to avoid any Simpson interaction for the two weeks bordering the holiday and finally block Lisa’s number when she sent a text to ask if you two could meet up sometime around the twentieth of the month. This year you have forgotten to even make an effort towards avoiding her.

“Are you two going, then?” you mutter. They do that creepy as hell nod in unison thing and your lip twitches into a grimace. 

“Bart invited me personally. I think he wants to hook up with me. I’ve been dropping hints,” Sherri says with a proud little grin, probably to piss you off. All you do is snort a laugh. 

“Okay. Good fucking luck with that, I guess,” you say, and Sherri’s nose crinkles at you. You rock on your heels and decide the twins are more annoying than worth it. Besides, hearing anymore about Lisa second hand from them is not something you can take, “I gotta go.”

“Well, will we see you there tonight?” Sherri asks as you step back from them, a high pitch turn to her words, and you think she might even want you there. You force a grin. 

“Only if you promise to give me a handy once you’re done with Bart,” you say. Sherri shakes her head at you with her tiny frown tight, hair swinging as she does. 

“You are a sick person, Nelson,” Terri spits, her arms crossed. 

“Good,” you say. You give them thumbs up and leave. 

It takes two and a half hours of thinking and two cigarettes for you to decide to call Bart. Those two and a half hours are built up of lots of thoughts of Lisa that haven’t come around in months. 

She tried texting you after you first broke up. You would get two, sometimes three a week. She wouldn’t let you loose of her. She would make sure her existence was there to keep ripping you up, with pictures of her dorm, stories of her classes, internships she had applied for, and, mostly, reminders of just how much she missed you. You replied to none of them, and they ebbed away after a month or so. 

She would still message when she’d been drinking or if she was high. You could spot those texts as they came in; poor grammar, rambling messages. You’d read them about half of the time, mostly to see how disjointed her thought could get it when she was stoned off her ass. Sometimes, on your worst days without her, you’d read them again and try to remember what it was like when she got high with you when she was thirteen. You tried to remember when your feelings for her were unplaceable and too muddled up to understand. You thought about going back and never entering that treehouse with her, about removing all the moments that brought the two of you together. But, once you read the messages a third time and every bit of Lisa popped out of them at you, all her familiar words echoing in you, you would decide you could never remove a single thing. 

“Yo, man. What’s up?” Bart says and it sounds like he’s doing something in the background as he talks. 

“Hey,” you spit, because you’re sort of pissed. Since Millhouse left and you and Lisa broke up, you’re about as close as either of you have to a best friend, which you’d like to think warrants a party invite, “so you’re having a party, huh?”

You hear a quick fumbling of whatever Bart was working on and mumbled ‘oh shit’. 

“Oh, ah, yeah, it-it’s, look, um, Lisa’s home and I-”

“Fucking hell, is this really about Lisa?” you groan. 

“I know it’s kind of tense between you guys, with how things ended. I didn’t want it to be weird,” Bart explains. You sigh, not needing the reminder of how things ended, or this conversation, or coddling from Bart over your ruined relationship. 

“I’ll be fine around Lisa,” you grit. You’d like to think after all this time that Lisa’s effects on you have diminished, though subconsciously you doubt that’s fully true. Bart stalls before he speaks. 

“Okay, I . . . I’ll see you at seven?” Bart asks, annoyingly unsure. He sighs, “Don’t be an asshole to her, please.”

“I won’t,” you say, tight in your chest at the assumption you would. You slam a goodbye and click off the phone. 

You show up at the Simpson house right at seven, though you don’t know why. Maybe some combination of nerves and the overwhelming urge to face Lisa head on and show that you can handle whatever shit lingers between you two. Still, though, you stand, unmoving, in front of the door for a few long minutes and stare at the chips of salmony pink ready to fall from it. Eventually, it swings open without you knocking, Homer on the other side with a worked over frown on his face. 

“What are you doing here?” he says, as he does most of the times you come over. 

“Bart invited me,” you grunt. Your tolerance for him is thinned to basically nothing since the break-up, which you toss some of the blame for on him. Shoving past him, you mutter a sarcastic ‘excuse me’. 

“I could kick you out,” Homer snarls, rubbing the shoulder you rammed against. You huff a laugh.

“Okay, Try it.” 

Homer stares at you for a long moment. Marge, who holds some soft spot of pity for you eternally, would never let him, and you think you could take a mid-fifties, obese, alcoholic if he tried anything. He shakes his head. 

“I’ll let you slide this time. Only because it’s the holiday season,” he says and you roll your eyes. 

“Dad? Who’s here?” Lisa’s voice rings from the kitchen, stabbing you over and over until you’re sure you’ll bleed out. You hear her footsteps through the dining room and want to dart, but your feet are stuck to the spot and everything about you is frozen and burning at the same time. And then she’s in same room as you. 

Her hair is longer, hanging around her collarbone and twisting into curls at its ends. The nose piercing is emerald, probably for her birthstone, and you don’t know how you goddamn remember that but you do. You remember her birthstone and the name of the lip gloss you’re pretty sure she's wearing, Strawberry Sunrise, and the shape her smiles can take as one spreads across her face. Her eyes are locked on you. 

“Nelson!” Lisa chirps. She’s bright and glowy, and, you guess, happy to see you. You don’t know if you’re happy. 

“Hey,” you push out of a tight, dry throat. Homer’s eyes flick between the two of you. 

“Don’t start dating him again, okay?” he insists, a wagging finger in Lisa’s direction. Her cheeks flush a bit. 

“Dad! Shut up please!” she says in a squeaky voice. Homer sighs, gives you another hard look, and mumbles something about wanting a beer as he leaves. Lisa stares at you again, clear and shining blue eyes, and neither of you say anything until Marges comes up next to her. 

“Nelson, sweetheart, Lisa and I are frosting some cookies. Come have one,” she says, her voice getting only raspier and more mom-like with age. You shake your head. 

“No, I’m good, thanks. Where’s Bart?” you rush. You glance at Lisa just as her smile falls and her brows scrunch up into an angry wrinkle. 

“In the backyard,” she shoots, after which she promptly makes a dramatic turn on her heels back towards the kitchen. Marge follows, for damage control, probably, and you’re alone, wondering what the hell happened. Your pulse is haywire. 

You help Bart mix a punch bowl’s worth of Everclear, Vodka, and Cranberry Sprite and select music for the night as the rest of the guests trickle in. Bart has the sense not to ask if you’ve seen Lisa yet and she goes unmentioned, though you can feel her around you throughout the party. Even as she mingles through old classmates and you go up to the treehouse to hit the bong, you just know that she has her eyes on you, searching you out.

You’re lingering by the fence with Bart when you catch Lisa looking directly at you from over by the punch bowl. There is a demanding pressure behind her stare and she doesn’t look away when you catch her, huffing out her nose. Somehow, you are certain she’s going to come running up to you with a list of all her complaints if you don’t look away right now. So, you flick your head away from her and towards Bart. 

“Good turn out,” you mutter to him. 

“Yeah,” Bart grins as he scans the yard. You follow, finding Sherri blinking her eyelashes at Bart. She’s wearing an old dress, a pink one that shows off all of her long legs and makes you somewhat excited still, but Bart just laughs. 

“Is Millhouse back in Springfield?” you ask without thought and regret it when Bart’s whole face drops. He shakes his head. 

“I guess his parents got divorced again. Mrs.Van Houten or, ah, shit, I guess not Van Houten anymore, my mom said she moved to Colorado with her new boyfriend. Millhouse is there, probably. I don’t fucking know. He’s not here, though.”

You nod and don’t say any more. Bart’s shoulders are dropping as he holds his solo cup to his chest, a wave of misery hitting him so intensely it splashes you, too. You feel so goddamn stupid for asking, for touching something that should be left alone, just as you and Lisa should. Bart mumbles that he needs to check something inside and swerves around you and away. 

It takes Lisa less than three seconds to fill his vacancy. 

“It would be nice if you could at least talk to me, considering we dated for two years,” she says, arms crossed. You shrug. 

“Hey. How’s it hanging? There you go,” you press back as you keep your stare forward and not at all on Lisa. You hear the click of her tongue and swear you can feel the roll of her eyes. 

“Why do you have to be so sophomoric sometimes?”

“I’m not a sophomore. I graduated three years ago,” you say, although you know what the word means. The grimace grows on her face and you remember you promised Bart to specifically not be an asshole to her. Your eyes shift to your feet, “sorry.”

Lisa hesitates, takes you in for a minute, before she sighs and brings her arms up to hug herself. Her nails are black and she has an occult ring on her finger, both shifting your familiar sense of her. 

“How are you, Nelson?” she asks. 

“Good,” you mumble back, but she frowns after that and you figure she expects more. You readjust against the fence, “I’m still working at Joe’s. Still live with my mom. That’s about it. How ‘bout you?”

Lisa smiles, small but bright. This is the moment she waits for, you know, with pride and eagerness. 

“I’m doing really well in my classes. Perfect 4.0. Also, I’m taking a really interesting music theory class that focuses on Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert. And I joined a local jazz band. We perform at a bar in town every Sunday,” Lisa details and then turns from you with a rosy flush cropping up across her, “Oh, um, I’ve been dating someone, too. For a few months.”

“Uh-huh,” you wince, and you want to tell her to fuck off, because this is what you wanted to avoid. You don’t want to know that she’s moving on. You don’t want to hear her inevitable successes, her amazing heights she's reaching now that you don’t drag her down. It’s safer if she doesn’t exist to you at all. Because everything about her cuts.

“Her name is Evelyn. She’s a poli-sci major, like me,” Lisa says, soft. 

“That’s gay,” you spit back like you’re not fucking miserable about this. Lisa shoves your arm with a huff and you shiver knowing it's the first time she’s touched you in a year and a half. She catches it, too, and snaps her hand back to her chest, redder. 

“Don’t be rude,” she mutters. You pull further from her. Silence passes, thick with her thoughts, before she whispers, “I’ve really missed you.”

That is just about too goddamn much for you to hear, all soft and crackly like that, and you move to leave. A blue head on an awkwardly skinny body makes you stop. 

“Holy shit,” you say, almost grinning. 

“What? What is it?” Lisa pips in, right at your shoulder. You gesture to backdoor, where Millhouse stands. He’s shrouded in an absolutely massive coat as his eyes search around the yard, tight and unsure. 

“It’s a fuckin’ Christmas miracle,” you say. You don’t really believe in stuff like that, but this is pretty close. Lisa’s face bursts into a glowing smile. 

“Oh, yeah, I wasn’t sure if he would actually come or not. It’s awesome, isn’t it?” 

You turn back around and look her over to find her pleased as can be. 

“Did you set this up?” you ask and Lisa nods with her chin held high. 

“I called him a few weeks ago and asked if he would stop in. He’s always had a soft spot for me, you know.”

“Yeah,” you snort, the memory of Millhouse’s Lisa obsession feeling like a foggy memory, a million years ago. You both still as Bart finally notices him and springs up out of his folding chair with so much intensity that it falls with a clunk against the cement. Millhouses freezes, cheeks stung red from the cold, and then there they are, both staring at each other like they’ve never seen someone this incredible. It’d make you barf if you didn’t like them. 

“Wow,” Lisa hums. Her eyes have gone glossy and wide, but there’s something sad there, too, that you don’t understand. She sighs at you with half a smile, tugging a lip in between her teeth, “C-can you, um, do you want to come inside for a minute?”

A moment of thinking goes by before you say anything. You don’t think you should. You don’t think you should let yourself be around Lisa any longer because you’re remembering all the ways you loved her and memories are stirring up that you know won’t leave you for months, will keep you up at night with regret and anger and a stabbing pain that can’t be helped. But, want is a lot stronger than smart thinking. 

“Okay.”

The Simpson halls have been well decked, even the fridge covered in Santa and Christmas tree magnets. There is a thick Christmas tree shoved in the corner of the front room full of a rainbow of ornaments and stockings with sewn on names on their fireplace. You wish, not for the first time, you grew up in a house like this. You don’t bother to wish for a perfect house with perfect parents, just a home with someone who would put up a stocking for you instead of buying a five inch tinsel tree on Christmas day that ends up getting some sort of liquor spilled on it. 

Lisa’s room has some modest decorations, sparkling blue tinsel wrapping her window and mirror and fairy lights that hang around her bed. She sits on that bed, looking to you expectantly as you linger in the doorway. 

“It was nice of you to set that up for Bart,” you mutter with a kick of your foot against the old carpet. 

“Bart needed it, I think,” Lisa says. You nod and realize now, thinking it over, how much he truly did. 

“Do you think they’ll get back together?” you ask. She grins to herself. 

“Yeah. Millhouse just finished an internship in Nevada. He’ll move back here if Bart asks.”

You don’t need to ask her if Bart will ask. The look he was giving Millhouse told you well enough. You force a rough smirk. 

“So, two gay Simpsons, huh?” you shot, your heart hitting around your chest. You’re kinda paranoid that she turned gay because of you, though you’re sure Lisa would call that an ignorant thing to say. She rolls her eyes. 

“I’m bi, actually,” Lisa huffs, and you admit, you’re relieved, “but, yes, two queer Simpsons. We’ll work on Maggie next.”

She laughs at her own joke and her cheeks crinkle up under her eyes, glowing like stars against her fairy lights. Your breath gets tangled up in you. You haven’t looked at her for this long in a while. The way she can stun you is new again. You keep your breaths measured and focus on a pen on her desk rather than her. 

“I . . . I still think about you. All the time,” Lisa says, soft and sensitive, “Do you ever . . . think about me?”

“I don’t . . .” you try, really try to say you don’t, but Lisa’s way too smart to ever believe straight up bullshit, “Yeah, I do.” 

She sucks in a breath and her lips settle in between a smile and something unsure. She bounds up and you fumble back, but not before she pulls you into a kiss. You don’t allow yourself to enjoy it before you yank back. 

“I thought you were dating that girl. Why-what are you-” you start, your brows in a tight knot. Lisa stops you, taking your face between her hands. Her touch burns against the cold of the room. 

“I don’t care. I miss you every day. Every day, Nelson. I can’t-I need you so much. Please, Nelson, I-”

You lean forward and kiss her again. You grab her hips, feel the solid sureness of her body that you’ve craved. For all the ways she’s changed, the feel of her under your hand is perfectly preserved. You pull her to you until there is not even room for air between your two bodies. Her heat is yours and sense memory hits of every other moment her body has bent to you. Want is all you feel. 

You want to reach under her clothes and feel goosebumps on her skin. You want to tug down her leggings and buck yourself against her panties until she is wet for you, just for you. You want to have the warmth of being inside her. You want to hear the squeaks she makes right before she cums. You want to have it all back right this moment, everything that you’ve had to go without. The ache in the pit of your stomach hurts like hunger and you don’t think it will go away until you have her. 

Lisa’s legs are secured around your hips as you hold her up above her bed. Your cock pulses between the two of you and she moans. Oh fucking Christ, you could fuck her right in her bed. You could pretend you’re nineteen and she's on winter break from Springfield High School. It could be like she never left. 

“Nelson, please!” she hisses. And you almost give in. But, the fact is, she did leave. 

And she will leave again. You force yourself to think that. Lisa will leave in January. You shout it in your head, as loud as you can. She will be gone in January and you’ll stay here. You’ll be here forever. 

You lower Lisa onto the bed, despite her whined protests. You take a hefty step back and try breathing away your arousal. Looking up at the ceiling and hating everything about this night, and this dumb as shit town that she will never stay in, you stop yourself. 

“I can’t,” you push, for her and you. You don’t want to listen to yourself, but for once, you’re actually right. Desperate to get out of this glowy room with too much of the past hanging around it and away from Lisa, who you want,  _ want, WANT _ , so much, you run. Really fucking run. 

Sucking up tears that almost fall, you stop halfway down the street and tug your lips into your mouth. They taste like Strawberry Sunrise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ps the promo images for this year's Treehouse makes it seems like one of the segments will be Nelson and Lisa centric !!!!!


	9. Twenty-Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy almost holidays! I am going to try to be more consistent with my update schedule, so thank you for sticking with this, and more will be coming shortly.

Your morning is started off by Sherri’s head jamming into your chin, tweaking the hell out of your neck. You groan away and shove at her. 

“Move. You’re hurting me,” you say as you flop face down onto your pillow and she mumbles a ‘sorry’. The whole bed has been infested by Sherri’s conditioner and perfume overnight. It’s sweet enough to make you a bit sick, but to also somehow entice you. Your hand wanders its way under the comforter and to Sherri, finding a spot on her hip, which is clothed in one of your t-shirts. With a warm hum, you hold firm onto her and tug yourself snug against her back. 

“You wanna . . .” you trail and kiss against her shoulder. Sherri whines and wriggles out from your hand. 

“It’s too early,” she huffs. You sigh and toss yourself on your back. 

“Didn’t realize you were sleeping over,” you say. It seems to be becoming a pattern and you’ve been waking up with your bed taken over by Sherri at least once a week. She sits up and shrugs before she tosses her hair over her shoulder and fingers out the knots from it. You prop yourself on your elbow and watch her check her phone, the absolute first step of her morning.

It’s been four months since Sherri called you while she was drunk at a frat party and kissed you in your Ford Fiesta after you picked her up and bought her midnight Krusty Burger. Falling back to her wasn’t quite as easy as you were used to, not after such a long break, and you’ve been relearning her. You two are better, though, than you ever were in high school. She’s nicer to you and you’ve improved your listening skills. You don’t think you love her, but maybe you could. 

“Are we still going to Bart’s today?” Sherri asks as she scrunches her nose at something she doesn’t like on Facebook. 

“Yeah. Well, Bart and Millhouse’s.” 

“I still can’t believe he’s gay,” she sighs, somewhat wistful. You snort and think that she’ll never fully get over that Bart was never really interested in her. 

“Really? I always thought he was pretty flaming.”

Sherri shoves at you and tells you not to be an ass and you take her closeness as a chance to kiss her. She’s got killer morning breath but you know she’d die if you told her so. So, you push through anyways. 

You agree to pick her up from her parents’ place at three to go to Bart and Millhouse’s new apartment. They moved in last week and Bart’s sent you a few pictures. It’s got really old carpet and a pre-installed stove that looks like it’s from the fifties, but you still give them credit for living on their own. You want that, too, want out of this stinky, stained, piece of shit rotting place. Mostly, you want the distance from your mom. You’ve been saving for a while, little bits of paychecks, and maybe if you get Sherri to move in somewhere with you and her hefty allowance can keep you two afloat, you could actually get out. Not from Springfield, you don’t even hope for that pipe dream, but out of the white trash dump that you’ve been stewing in for your whole life. 

Your mom, in a purple and matted bathrobe, sips on her coffee in the kitchen as you walk Sherri out. She smiles a sideways grin at you both and Sherri’s brow furrows with what you think is disapproval. 

“Hey, Sherri, honey. Want some coffee?” your mom asks. She’s getting a mug ready and fiddling with your old coffee maker. Sherri gives her a stiff shake of her head and the most plastered smile you’ve seen. Your mom shrugs and tops off her own mug. Her glitter eyeliner and mascara are smudged under her eyes, leftovers of work. They’ve been giving her less hours at the club and you’re distantly worried she’ll be fired soon. 

“I have to get going,” Sherri rushes, desperate to leave. She’s always squirmy around your mom, sort of disgusted, sort of unsure. Has been since forever ago. You get it. Your mom is a very clear reminder of the dirty type she’s been spending her nights with. You’re over being offended over any of Sherri’s opinions, which you take with a grain of salt. She shoots you a goodbye and skips a kiss as she scurries her way out of your house. 

“Such a pretty girl,” your mom hums as she watches her go, a hint of bitterness crawling up her throat. 

“Let’s have a smoke,” you offer. Smoking is one of the main shared activities you can do comfortably with your mom, which could be why you started, if you’re honest. There’s a calm to it you don’t usually get around her. You decide it’s as good a space as any to toss around the idea of you moving out. 

The brand of choice for your family has always been Malboro Blacks, which are cheaper than regular Malboros but virtually the same, if not a bit weaker. You hold your lighter at the end of your cigarette for a moment before you flick it off and hold it out to your mom. 

“I’m gonna go see Bart and Millhouse’s new apartment later,” you say against the cold as your mom takes her long, first drag of the morning. 

“Oh, those two moved in together? Jesus. Well, Millhouse was always a fruity one,” she shoots back, a snarl to her lip. Her obvious disgust for you being friends with a gay couple is annoying but not surprising. You can’t judge her for it, as you would probably feel the same if your best friends weren’t also in love with each other. And, you guess, you should also credit Lisa for you not being a bigot. You do owe her that.

“Their rent at the complex is pretty cheap. Like $700 a month,” you mention. Your mom’s eyes flick over to you briefly and she juts out her chin in a sort of nod without saying anything. You huff and spend a few minutes smoking in silence and getting your thoughts together. Guilt creeps in for the first time. Since your dad walked out when you were six, it’s been only the two of you as a team. Your grandma on your mom’s side lives down in Nevada and you’d see her on Christmas, maybe. No aunts, uncles, or cousins to go to, either. There’s a solidarity in that that you can’t deny, despite your mom’s shitiness as a parent, a comfort and a need in having only each other for such a long time. But, on the other hand, you think you’d rather move in with Skinner and his mom than stay stuck in this crumbling shithole until you’re twenty-five. 

“I’ve been thinking I might look for a place there,” you say, flatly, as though leaving home for the first time is no big deal. Your mom chokes on some smoke and rolls angry, confused eyes over to you. 

“Wait, since when the fuck have you been thinking about moving out?” she spits. You shrug, lean back in your folding chair, and bring your cigarette back up to your lips. 

“I’ve got some money saved up. Seemed like it was time,” you mutter and your mom snorts loudly. With a frown, you stare forward and don’t give it attention. 

“Well, honey, you can’t just do that,” she says, and you really hate when she calls you ‘honey’, like you’re her sweet little boy and she’s a concerned mom. It stinks of fakeness. 

“Why not?” you grunt, sinking down lower in your seat. 

“Nelson, this is a whole fuckin’ house we live in. It has a mortgage. A goddamn expensive one. I can’t afford it on my own. You have a responsibility to me.”

You suck in your lips not to yell at her and whip your head around to look at her face after she’s said that. There’s no shame. None. It makes your stomach turn, how awful she can get, how selfish and hypocritical. You wish you could scream at her and list all the ways she’s held you back. You think she needs it listed. Maybe then she’d feel even sort of bad about how she’s failed you. You turn back away from her and hold your tongue. 

“Your mortgage is not my problem,” you grumble, low and hot. She stands up behind you; you can hear it, and goes right into her speech. 

“Do you realize how selfish you are? I raised you, kid! I made sure you had food and clothes, however I could. I fuckin’ scrimped and saved for you, especially once your dad walked out! And I ask for one thing, a little goddamn help, and you can’t be bothered? You are such an ungrateful little-”

That’s the point you leave; stand up, stamp out your cigarette on the ground, and bang against the screen door until it rattles open. Your mom is still yelling behind you, loud and whining, but she’s smoked for thirty years compared to your eight, so she’s not hard to outrun. With just your keys and yourself, you get into your car and leave the house, not sure how you could ever face going back to it.

Today is your day off, so you don’t have work to escape into. You also don’t have your wallet, so you can’t buy a forty and piss off to the mountains until you pick up Sherri, either. With limited options, you drive up to the canyon, smoke a half pack you have from a while ago in your glove compartment, and blast your radio for a few hours. It leaves you with your thoughts, which isn’t much to be left with. Mostly, they’re angry and formless. You become sure after the first hour your mom is probably searching through your wallet to grab the last of your cash she can get before you move out, even though that seems too low for even her. Your time alone doesn’t mellow you, only makes you more tense and furious, and you stew until half past one when you find enough change in your seats to buy a bacon cheeseburger from Krusty Burger. Food settles your hunger, at least. 

By the time you get to Sherri’s, you’ve turned bitter and fed up with the world at large for allowing you to be raised by Marilyn Muntz. You grunt at Sherri when she gets into the passenger seat and kisses your cheek. 

“You okay?” she asks as she sits. You shrug and spit out the window, making her groan. 

“Yeah. Got in a fight with my mom. It’s whatever,” you mutter and Sherri hums. She doesn’t touch shit with your mom or your lingering, deep shit with your dad, and you don’t blame her. She adjusts the radio to her liking and you both let whatever is wrong with you go unmentioned. 

“We are so excited to have you!” Millhouse cheers as he greets you both at the door, a Duff can clutched in his hand, “You’re our first guests! Or, uh, other than our parents, but I don’t know if they count.”

He pats your back and pulls Sherri into a tight hug, maybe buzzed or maybe still riding on the high of his move-in. Sherri smiles at him the best she can, but you can see in her eyes she’s not pleased with Millhouse getting this cosy. You take her hand and guide her over to the couch before she gets too frustrated. Bart is sat rolling up a joint with his back against it and he grins up at you when he spots you. 

“Northern Lights,” he says, holding it up. 

“Shit. Throwback,” you say. Northern Lights was what you all used to smoke on Saturday nights in late high school when you’d rent shitty action B-movies and lay on the basement couch until deep into the night. It would leave you dreamy and silly and sedated, with your head in Lisa’s lap as she combed your hair off your face with her fingers and called you her favorite idiot. The memory makes you swallow roughly. 

“Hell yeah, dude! We are celebrating the new place,” Bart beams. You pick up the jar of Northern Lights to smell as you and Sherri sit on either side of Bart. Mostly smells like skunk, but there is something earthy and memorable under that. Bart finishes off rolling the second joint and throws his head over to Sherri. 

“So, Sher, tell us about LCC. Is it treating you well? All you ever dreamed?” Bart asks, the usual disdain he treats college educations with thick in his voice. Sherri sighs. 

“It’s fine. I’m doing really good. I’ll be transferring to University of Oregon soon,” she says, smug, though there’s no one here to impress with that. 

“That’s great!” Millhouse pipes in over Bart’s smirk. Sherri gives a quick thanks. 

“Mills, can you show Sherri around the place while Nelson and I go enjoy our refreshments on the patio?” Bart asks. Sherri shoots you a dissatisfied frown, but you want to get high after the morning you had, so you shrug your shoulders, kiss her cheek, and tell her you’ll be quick under your breath. She huffs and follows an eager Millhouse down the hall. 

“The place is really nice,” you tell Bart as he lights up the joint. It’s not actually  _ that _ nice, a standard first apartment, but next to your living situation, it’s pretty damn good. 

“Thanks. Yeah, my mom did some interior design, if you noticed her touches.”

You have, in the carefully placed family photos and some familiar throw pillows. It’s endearing, if you’re honest, and you want to ask her to decorate your future places, too. 

“What’s your dad think of this?” you mumble as you take a hit. Bart snorts and his lips tick up into a grimace. 

“Homer decided _not _to help us move in. He’s . . . fuck, well, he’s still trying to slip me Playboy’s and take me to strip clubs. That’s where we’re at,” Bart grumbles, wringing his hands and tugging his lips in between his teeth.

“Fuck your dad,” you spit out without thinking, your own anger at Homer coloring your voice. You flick your eyes away from Bart as you hand the joint back, “Sorry.”

“No, yeah. Fuck yeah. He’s such an ass,” Bart agrees and takes a harsh hit, coughing as he finishes off. His eyes are narrowed and focused on the fence for a long moment, before he shakes it off and pulls a smirk at you, “Whatever, though. I just moved in with my fucking hot boyfriend. I’m living the life.”

“Bart?” Millhouse’s head comes poking out the door and Bart’s cheeks go glowy. You roll your eyes.

“Yeah?”

“Uh, your sister’s here,” Millhouse says, thick brows folding into each other. 

“Maggie? She’s by herself?” Bart asks. Millhouse’s eyes glance to you for the smallest second and he shakes his head. 

“No, your other . . . Lisa. Lisa’s here.”

A small touch of heat rises on your cheeks as Bart pulls himself up. You think you hear him mutter ‘jesus christ’ under his breath. 

“I’ll go talk to her. Nelson, you, uh, stay here for a minute, okay?” Bart shoots at you. You narrow your eyes at him as stand from your chair, body stretched tall, defiant and broad chested. It makes you sick how they all baby you around Lisa, how they act like you will somehow fall apart at the sight of her. It’s insulting, actually, that Bart and Millhouse think you’re that fragile and in need of protection. And Lisa is not some demon to fear and hide away from; she’s just your ex. You can handle an ex. You mean, you’re dating Sherri, so obviously you can manage them alright. With a shove against his shoulders, you get past Bart and into the room. 

Lisa is there, right in your line of sight, and you are doing fine, absolutely, totally fine to see her again after over a year. She’s cut off the grown out hair of last time so that it’s barely more than a pixie cut and wearing a sundress full of blue, blooming flowers that swishes about her legs. Completely new, once again. Also, there’s a snotty dude holding her hand. You don’t take the time to consider that yet. 

Instead, you seek out Sherri. She’s pissed, which is no surprise, staring down Lisa like the idea of having to be in the same room as her for another moment is more than she could fucking handle. You’ve always found Sherri sort of cute when she’s angry as hell, which might explain some of your relationship problems. You go to place a comforting arm around her waist and catch Lisa eyeing you as you make the move. 

“Lisa,” Bart says to her, voice thick and huffy. She bubbles nervous laughter and presses a smile. 

“The place is great! Really nice!” she cheers, gesturing around the room. The guy hovering by her, the one with a prissy button up tucked into his pressed pants and ginger hair, nods with a cold, small motion.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were coming over?” Bart sighs at her, “We have guests.”

Lisa adjusts herself in quick, unsure jitters. There’s something nervous and unsettled about her that’s setting you off as well. She scans over you and Sherri, lingers at the arm you have around her waist, and you straighten up in response. She purses her lips and moves her head back to Bart. 

“Sorry, um. I didn’t realize . . . Hugh and I took a sort of unexpected holiday so he could meet Mom and Dad. Mom gave me the address. I thought, maybe we could drop in. I really wanted to see the place, and see you guys again, so,” she pauses, shakes off whatever’s clouding her, and tugs the snotty guy, Hugh, forward, “anyways! Here’s the Hugh I’ve been telling you about!”

“Lovely to meet you Bart and, er, Milton, right?” Hugh greets and his posh-as-fuck accent makes you want to scoff. Bart claps the extended hand reluctantly and quirks a frown. 

“It’s Millhouse. Didn’t he just tell you at the door?” 

“Bart!” Lisa squawks. Hugh shakes his head at her with a shrug of his shoulders and she sucks in a breath and actually quiets. The shock of that sets you off for a few moments. 

“Millhouse. Yes, of course,” Hugh takes Millhouse’s hand and shakes it thoroughly, which Bart curls his lip up at, “Terribly sorry.”

“Where’d you get a hot British boyfriend, Lisa?” Sherri asks, sounding jealous. Hugh chuckles, too pleased with himself, and Lisa snorts. 

“Uh, Stanford? Where’d you get your boyfriend?” Lisa fires in return. The whole scene; with Lisa and Sherri snapping back and forth, the who’s dating who, you never being enough for Sherri, never hot or smart or romantic or socially skilled enough, it’s all too high school. You make the executive choice to leave this conversation and decide to take Sherri with you when you see her cheeks deepening into red. 

“C’mon, Sher, let’s go outside,” you mutter close to her ear. She hesitates and glares at Lisa with all the power she can-which is a lot-before she turns on her heels and lets you guide her to the patio. Lisa watches you as you do, you know. You feel the heat of her confused studying all the way to the door. 

“Jesus, what the hell?” Sherri spits the moment you get the sliding door shut. You shrug, trying your best at numbness, as deep and mixed feelings crawl up through you, leaving you jittery under your skin. 

“Let’s . . . we should leave them be. Bart will deal with it,” you mumble, though it seems impossible to keep from looking over your shoulder and seeking out Lisa in between slivers of blinds. 

“Of course she’d show up when you and I are here. She’s so annoying,” Sherri says and you turn your head away from the blinds. 

“I don’t think she knew we’d be here.”

“Don’t defend her!” Sherri snaps and you toss your hands up in defense. She sighs and shakes her head, her angry frown mellowing into a flat line, “Sorry. I’m not mad at you. I just didn’t expect to see her today. I know you didn’t either. You . . . you’re okay seeing her, right?”

You hesitate to answer her question, which you’re sure is her testing you veiled as concern. To be honest, Lisa being here has left you more shook up than you expected it would. Maybe you expected not to ever have to see her. That was stupid of you, stupid of you to leave yourself so open to her effects. 

“Yeah. I don’t care what she does,” you tell Sherri. She flicks a small smile once you’ve given her the answer she wanted. 

“Good,” she hums. You smile back and wait until she’s checking her phone to peek in between the blinds. A glint of Lisa’s face; full cheeks and a pair of Marge’s old pearl earrings, before she moves and you can’t see her anymore. 

Bart comes to get you after fifteen minutes or so and tells you to come back in already. Lisa is not in the living room as you and Sherri come back in and some of the tightness releases from your shoulders. Hugh is there, though, eyeing you as you do the same. You wonder if he knows who you are, your history with Lisa, everything the two of you once meant to each other. Deep inside of yourself, you really hope he does. You want him uncomfortable, thinking of every moment you and Lisa shared. You want him scared of you. With a final once over and a nasty snarl to your lip, you turn from Hugh to Sherri.

“I’m going to the bathroom,” you mutter to her. After, you press a kiss to her temple, steady and sure, and nose into her soft, featherlight hair. It’s a reminder, for you and for her, that she’s the one who matters, the one who stayed. Not Lisa. Lisa, and her polished British boyfriend and her pixie cut and the different, smaller light that burns under her cheeks now, is not your problem anymore. 

The only bathroom in the apartment is connected to the bedroom that Bart guides you down the hall to. The bed is covered in a grey plaid comforter and made nice, which is probably just for company. Night stands sit on either side of it; a pristine one with a black and red alarm clock you figure must be Millhouse’s and another one already filling up fast with candy wrappers and Monster bottles that is pretty obviously Bart’s. And next to that nightstand, of course, because you can’t ever really escape from her, is Lisa, smiling at a photo in her hands. She catches your stare on her after a moment and blushes. You frown down at your toes. 

“Oh, hey,” she sighs. You tip your chin at her, not wanting to talk and risk losing control of your words. She turns the picture to you. It’s a cheesy posed one from senior prom with cheap suits and acne on Millhouse’s forehead. Lisa and you are cropped out of frame, for obvious reasons, “Cute, huh?”

You nod, still silent. It’s hard to look at Lisa, sort of. When she’s not around, you can tell yourself that she doesn’t matter to you and pretend you're over her. It’s easy to place her firmly in the past when you have made sure she doesn’t exist for you anymore. Having her in the room, specifically in touching distance, is a painful slap to your senses. Every feeling for her that you’ve put away surfaces and you think you could pass out from all of it. Lisa looks at you as she wrings her hands.

“I’m sorry, by the way. I didn’t know you’d be here. Hugh and I are only in town for two days and I wanted him to meet the whole family. Plus, I don’t know when else I could see the apartment in person, and-”

“It’s fine,” you say over Lisa, because it’s not like you’re owed an explanation, or that you want one that much. You haven’t owed each other anything in a long time, “So, uh, Hugh met your parents? How was that?”

Lisa snorts in a way that makes her feel familiar despite her changes and shakes her head. A warm flush of old attraction tingles across your face. 

“Oh God. My dad was . . . well, like himself. I don’t think I really prepared Hugh fully for that. It’s okay. He’ll adjust to my family, I’m sure,” she says with a begrudging smirk. 

“Yeah, maybe,” you mumble, less than sure and hoping for the worst for Hugh for reasons you can’t fully explain. 

“Are you and Sherri back together?” Lisa questions, a sharp twinge of anger settled in the words. 

“Yeah. So?” you push back, nearly as rough. Lisa knots up her brows and gives you one of those demeaning little looks she’s got down so well. 

“The last time we talked about you and Sherri, you told me she literally made you insane. That your relationship consisted of mostly her insulting you and you yelling at her. Why are you doing that to yourself again?” she details with her hands jabbing out in front of her with every point she makes. Your gut tosses with what she has said and for the first time you understand why Sherri hates her so much. Lisa is relentless. She pushes and digs in too deep and only stops when she’s got you worked down enough to let her win being right. That’s another part of her you forgot while she’s been gone, that she doesn’t know when to keep her head out of your shit. 

“It’s not like that anymore. Sherri’s different. So am I. I think you’d know a thing about change, since you’re pretty much a different person every time I see you,” you say and Lisa rolls her eyes with an overly dramatic toss of her head. You want to growl with how much she’s pissing you off. Being around her makes you like this, brings everything you feel to the extreme. You don’t know how you managed this when you dated. Or, your whole life, if you’re honest. 

“That’s because I’m growing up, figuring myself out, having new experiences. I’m not ashamed of that, Nelson. I’m not embarrassed that I’m not stagnating in Springfield, doing nothing to advance myself in life and dating the same vapid, toxic ex!”

“Shut the fuck up about Sherri!” you spit as heat floods you from the top of your head and out through your fingertips. A defensive streak you didn’t know you had for Sherri peaks in you and you think you’ll do something you regret if Lisa spews anymore shit about your girlfriend. Lisa’s breath catches and she clutches into the fabric at the neck of her dress as she turns her face down. 

“Shit, sorry, I didn’t mean . . . I know I haven’t been here, I have no right . . .” she stops, shuts her eyes, takes a long, deep breath. Against your will, sympathy crops up and you have to fight your mouth not to tell her it’s okay. It’s really not. You’re really not, “It’s hard for me to see you, too. There’s a lot of . . . emotional baggage coming back up very suddenly.”

“Lisa,” you murmur. So many questions spark in you, about her baggage and if it’s as deep and stuck as yours. But you can’t do much else than get sucked into her blue eyes and all the hefty unsaid they contain. 

“Um, hello,” a sharp voice, Sherri’s, says in the doorway. The glare you find when you look over to her is particularly direct and aggressive, “Lisa, your boyfriend is looking for you.”

“Yes. I’ll go find him. Thanks, Sherri,” Lisa says with a tight nod. Sherri contorts her glare into a cutting smile and moves aside as Lisa hurries out of the room. 

“We are leaving,” Sherri grits, her arms crossed in front of her. You sigh and meet her at the door, the declaration not a shock. You manage a goodbye to Bart and Millhouse before Sherri storms you all the way out of the apartment.

The ride is all awkward silence and Sherri’s muffled huffs. She had shut the radio off as soon as you turned it on and let the both of you sink down into the tension that spews off her. 

“Are you going to say anything?” she snaps as you make the turn down her street. You keep your eyes straight ahead and shrug. 

“About what?”

“About whatever you were doing in that room with Lisa,” she fires back. You park the car by the curb in front of her house and toss yourself back against your seat. Sherri studies you as she waits for an answer. 

“Nothing. She was being rude, so I called her out. You know, actually, I was defending you, and-what are you doing?” You watch her dive her hands through your glove compartment with a fury in her fingers. 

“Looking for something to throw at you!” she shouts, as if that clears everything up.

“Why the fuck are you doing that?”

“Because you are obviously still in love with Lisa!” 

The accusation sends a shiver of fire down your spine. Makes you want to spit angry denials and tell Sherri to fuck off to even think to say that to you. But fuck it if your heart didn’t pound like nothing else, your arms didn’t goosebump, every nerve didn’t tick on. Maybe you’re only upset because Sherri’s right. It doesn’t really matter either way, you guess. Whether or not you love Lisa, she will be with that prick, Hugh, and Sherri will be mad enough to kick you out of her life. 

“Babe, no, please, I’m not-” you try, even knowing it’s pointless. She finds your work gloves, greasy and covered in thick leather, and tosses them so they smack right against your face. They fall and fold against each other in your lap. You stare at them for a moment, your shoulders dropping with all the weight of your feelings for Lisa and Sherri coupled together, “Jesus, Sher, c’mon.”

“She’s never going to get back together with you. I hope you know that. She thinks you’re trash. That’s why she left!” Sherri hisses. Your eyes have gone wet, not tears, but wet, and you don’t know if it’s for Sherri or for Lisa. 

“Can you fucking storm off already?” you mutter spitefully as you run your sleeve down your face. You don’t watch as she slams the car door and runs on her wedges all the way to her front porch. Almost instantly, you have lost all interest in the drama of Sherri. 

You speed off and away with no clear direction. There’s nowhere you feel you belong in right now, but you settle for the parking lot of the abandoned JC-Penny. 

The awful truth is that you’re sadder to lose Sherri’s part of the rent on a potential apartment then you are her. It’s for the best, then. Neither of you deserve a relationship like that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I went deep into those fan-wikis for Hugh and Nelson's mom ;)
> 
> Give kudos & review for my research skills plsssss


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